Host: Sara Barron
Marc: [00:00:01] Hi, everyone. Producer Marc here. Just wanted to let you know that in the opening, our host mentions the existence of suicide and self-harm. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe skip the opening. We hope you enjoy the show.
Sara Barron: [00:00:15] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Sara Barron, your host for this week.
For 2022, we've been celebrating our 25th Anniversary by going back through each year of The Moth's existence. This episode, we're at 2014, which just so happens to be the year that we launched our StorySLAMs in the British Isles. To mark the occasion, we're going to play two stories for you, one from Dublin and one from London.
Now, hosting The Moth in London is a really special experience. I've lived in the UK for almost a decade. And in that time, I've learned this phrase that British people often use to describe Americans. And it's not an insult, but it's not quite a compliment either. The phrase is a bit much.
So, when I first started hosting over here, I felt this real pressure to dial down a certain amount of stereotypical American enthusiasm and positivity. The British audience, if we're just going to dip our toe in the water of a cultural stereotype for just a second, very generally they're less openly emotional. So, a swell of emotion from a British crowd, be it uproarious applause or all those tears starting to flow, it's just way less of a thing here in the UK.
But then, there was this night when I was hosting a GrandSLAM at this venue called Union Chapel. It's this beautiful old church in North London that's been converted into a performance venue. And midway through the show, this guy gets up named Michael Sutch. He's lovely, unassuming. He's like a little bit nervous when he first gets up there, but then almost instantly he settles into himself and goes on to tell this story that was, at different turns frightening, impossibly funny, and in the end, unbelievably moving about being in his early 20s, unable to manage the pressures he was under, and deciding to end his own life. The attempt was unsuccessful, obviously, and I won't go into all the details now.
You can find the story in the show notes for this episode, and on themoth.org/extras and we'll link to it there. For now, I just want to say I heard this story and was in floods of tears, laughing through the tears. And I remember thinking, come on, British people, surely this one is going to get you guys too. If one is going to do it, this is the one. And sure enough, I look expectantly but subtly around at the rest of the audience. And of course, they are all also in tears.
Finally, not just keeping calm and carrying on or whatever stereotype we want to defer to here, they've rather been carried away by this story that, from every possible angle, was too moving and funny to let them do otherwise. It was, in my humble opinion, very classic Moth, The Moth, as they'd say over here at its bloody best.
First up, we have Catherine Brophy. She told this at a moth open-mic StorySLAM in Dublin, where theme of the night was Home. Here's Catherine, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Catherine: [00:03:20] This happened the very first time I ever travelled. That was in my extreme youth. And for some reasons, I don't quite know what I wanted to see the Acropolis in Athens. That was my whole aim and object in life. So, we decided to go to Greece. And we went to Greece, we stayed in Athens, we saw the Acropolis, we were suitably impressed. But what blew me away was that it never rained. [audience laughter] Any day. It didn't rain any day at all. Didn't rain at night. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
For an Irish person, that is a miracle. [audience laughter] So, of course, when you go to Greece, you have to go to an island. And off we went. We decided to go to Poros. And the reason we chose Poros was because it was the cheapest fare. [audience laughter] Now, we weren't being cheap, we were just very poor. [audience laughter] So, off we went to Poros, and we landed into the little village. We weren't staying in the village, because we were going to camp, because we were very poor.
We walked outside the village, and found a road that went round the edge of the island and we found the perfect place to camp. The land was tiered, and there was this bit which is completely flat. It had a pine tree on it for shelter. There was a wall. And then, on the next level, there was some an orchard or something. It was overlooking the sea and we thought, this is it. So, we set up our tent. But it was so hot, we didn't even need to sleep in the tent. That was grand. That night, we lay there with the smell of the pine tree. There was the Milky Way glittering in the sky and the sound of the waves. We fell asleep watching falling stars. It was completely magical.
The next morning, we woke up. When you wake up and you know there's somebody there, you haven't seen them yet, but you know. [audience laughter] We looked round and standing on the wall behind us was this old man and about five women. They were all [audience laughter] staring down at us, and we were staring up at them. And the old man started speaking to us in Greek, but it was all Greek to us, of course. [audience laughter] And then, he offered us fresh figs. I'd never seen a fig in my life. Never mind eating them. So, that was terrific and fabulous. And we thanked him very much.
We used the one word of Greek that we had, which was kaliméra. And they all smiled. I think they thought we had more Greek than that, but anyway. Then the man did something. He was signing and talking away to us. And the implication was he was going to go away and he was going to come back. We weren't sure was he going to come back with the police? Were we trespassing on somebody's land? What exactly was going on? So, we decided we'd tidy up our things and have them ready to move, just in case.
About half an hour later, he returned with one of those-- You know Greek bags, those woven bags, a huge big one of those. And out of the bag, he took one of those little blue gas stoves, and a bottle of water and a little pot and coffee, and he made us coffee. It turned out that he spoke a little bit of German. I speak no German, but my two friends did. He had worked in Germany for a bit for a while. He told us that this tree, this pine tree was his tree, and therefore we were his guests and that's why he was bringing us coffee. So, that was absolutely fabulous. [audience laughter]
But he came every single morning, every single morning. We had to be sure to be dressed before he arrived [audience laughter] because you really don't want to be putting on your knickers and your bra in front of an elderly Greek man making you coffee. [audience laughter] As the time went on, he asked us where we were from. And we told him we were from Ireland and he looked totally blank. We explained that you know where Germany is? And then beside Germany, there's Holland. Yes, he knew that. And then, there's the sea. Yes, he knew that. And then, there's England. “Oh, you're English.” “No, no, no, we are not.” So, there's England.
And then, after England, there's more sea and there's another island. “Oh, the Isle of Man.” [audience laughter] “No, no, no, no, no,” I said. “America?” [audience laughter] “No, no, no.” So, it was like we'd said we'd come from Tír na nÓg, [audience laughter] But in any event, the day before we were to leave, he told us that we were to be there at lunchtime, because he brought his wife, and his wife brought another big bag with another little cooker, and she cooked stuffed tomatoes for us on this.
He gave us retsina wine, which had been made with the resin from the tree that we were sleeping under. And the tomatoes were delicious. The wine was, well, there's a reason they call it the divine paraffin. [audience laughter] It's an acquired taste. [audience laughter] And we left the island the next day. And of course, I've never seen them again. But in my head, Sotherios, which is the old man's name, and his wife are my Greek family and that pine tree is my home from home.
[cheers and applause]
Sara Barron: [00:09:12] That was Catherine Brophy. Catherine lives in Ireland and travels the world. She's been rescued by a circus troupe in Serbia, had breakfast with a Zambian chief, been kicked by a horse on the Mexican plain and yes, she has a couple of tales to tell.
Our next storyteller is Charlotte Mooney. She told this story at a Moth StorySLAM in London, where theme of the night was Tests. Here's Charlotte, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Charlotte: [00:09:45] Hello. Four years ago, I was sitting on the edge of my bath in my bathroom, holding a plastic pregnancy test, so babies, and waiting to see what was going to turn up in the window, if I was going to get a line or a cross. And the strange thing about pregnancy tests, is sometimes you get a line and you're not pregnant, and it is the cause for the most joyous relief. And sometimes you get a line and it's crushing. And crosses can pretty much go either way as well. And in that moment, I actually didn't know how I was going to feel. And a cross appeared, and it was with huge relief that I realized I was happy. Fucking scared shitless, but underlying that happy.
At the time my partner was away, it was his baby. That's not the way this story's going. [audience laughter] He's a circus performer and he was performing a piece of abstract dance in a tree in Wales. [audience laughter] And I thought, rather than tell him on the phone, I was going up to see his show at the weekend. So, I thought, I'll wait till the weekend and I will tell him then.
And so, for the next four days, I found myself going back to this pregnancy test to just check, like I thought the result might have changed. I would be wandering aimlessly around the house clutching it. So, when Saturday came, it made sense to me to wrap it up in a little bit of tissue paper and put a bow around it and write, “Dear Alex.” And then, I put it on the passenger seat next to me and I drove up the M4 to see him. And for the first part of the journey, I was full of these fantasies and daydreams about how he would open it and sweep me up in his arms and cry tears into his manly beard.
But the moment I crossed the Severn Bridge and got closer and closer, I started to feel unease, partly because I realized my fantasies were quite disgustingly sentimental. Partly I was starting to question the wisdom of doing a big, grand romantic gesture with an object that I had essentially urinated on. [audience laughter] And partly because deep down, I didn't know how he was going to react.
I arrived late. He and the rest of the cast were already in the tree. [audience laughter] So, I put the pregnancy test in my pocket, and sat at the bottom and started to watch the show. I was a little bit relieved to have a stay before I had to tell him. And the show, it was a piece of abstract contemporary circus with birds’ mimicry. It was batshit crazy. But I actually really loved it and I was really proud of him. It was very long. [audience laughter]
The first hour was great. But after hour two, hour three, hour four went on, I just started to get increasingly nervous. So, by the time he came down from the tree, I felt like a 13-year-old girl about to ask someone to get off with them. [audience laughter] He ran towards me and he did scoop me up in his arms and he said, “I've really missed you. I've planned a whole afternoon for us.” And I was like, “Okay.” The first thing he and the other performers took me-- At the bottom of the oak tree, there was a spring. And if you followed the spring out of the town, it led to a wood and then it turned into a stream, and then after about half an hour, that became waterfalls and after about an hour, it was a deep pool of clear water, reflecting black in the way only Welsh water can, but beautiful.
All the rest of them stripped their clothes off and started jumping in. And Alex said, “you're going to love it, but I've got to warn you, it's shockingly cold.” And I started to think, “Fuck, is it all right to jump in shockingly cold water when you're pregnant?” [audience laughter] I know you're not supposed to have really hot baths. Is it like this? Is it an extremity of temperature thing? But I couldn't tell him that I didn't want to jump in the shockingly cold water because I didn't want to tell him I was pregnant there in front of loads of other people. So, I ended up taking off my clothes and jumping in for the most short polite amount of time possible for a great life changing experience, and then jumping out and putting my clothes on again.
And then, after that we had a six-hour hike in the mountains, and then we had a communal meal, and then there was a fire pit, and then singing and then a presentation. So, by the time [audience laughter] we were actually alone together. It was 2 o’clock in the morning and I think what I actually did was something like this. “I got you a present.” [audience laughter] He opened it and his face was completely blank. [audience laughter]
I felt like a physical stab of fear there. He said, “I'm really sorry, but I don't know what it is.” [audience laughter] I said it's a pregnancy test. And he said, “What does the cross mean again?” And I said, “The cross means you're pregnant.” He let out a sort of strangled bird like whoop [audience laughter] and did an asymmetrical dance leap off the bed, none of which had been in my fantasies. [audience laughter] But at that moment were the absolutely perfect reaction. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Sara Barron: [00:16:01] That was Charlotte Mooney is a storyteller and circus artist based in London. She has told all sorts of stories in clubs, theaters, festivals and around campfires across the UK, including folklore, myth, science and history. She is also Artistic Director of circus company Ockham's Razor is.
That's all for this week. We hope you enjoyed our look back at Moth stories from the British Isles, and we hope you'll come with us as we continue to dive into some of our favorite stories from The Moth's 25-year history. From all of us here at the Moth, have a story worthy week.
Marc: [00:16:36] Sara Barron is one of the fastest rising comedians of her generation. A powerhouse live act, Sarah's two standup hours, For Worse and Enemies Closer have sold out at both the Edinburgh Festival and at multiple runs in London's Soho Theatre. She was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, as well as receiving rave reviews for from publications including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Evening Standard and The Scotsman. As a writer, Sarah has published two essay collections, People Are Unappealing and The Harm in Asking. Her writing has also featured in Vanity Fair and on this American Life.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth’s leadership team include Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers.
For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, The Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.